Follow the Fader

Video: Small Black, “Bad Lover”

Chillwave! What's been going on with that? This isn't chillwave, not entirely sure that anything is actually chillwave. Small Black though—they're not about nostalgia like a lot of those other bands that could fall into that non-category. They're about emotional sketches. Complain that there's not much here—that you can't really understand singer Josh Kolenik and you can't grasp onto any of the music, which floats, never stomps—and maybe it's just not something that resonates with you. It certainly capitalizes on a specific sense of longing—personal regret/sadness blown out into the ears of anyone listening. There's some 8-bit graphics and some snow, people in masks. Worst comes to worst, you just spent like five minutes remembering something weird that happened last winter. Can we ask for much more from a single?